Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

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120 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER SCIENTIFIC FILM NEWS ON THE INTERNATIONAL PROSPECT Bv JOHN MADDISON thetradition thatthe fruitsof research should be freely exchanged between the scientists of all nations is a long-established one. During the past century, this international traffic in ideas has played a vital role in the spectacular growth of our organized knowledge about the universe. Where scientific books, periodicals and records of proceedings are concerned, an efficient world wide system of interchange has been built up. But in the case of the cinema, this new instrument of research and communication, no such international mechanism of distribution exists. There are, of course, reasons for this. Cinematography is only some fifty years old. Films are industrial products, and relatively costly. Trade restrictions and customs barriers prevent them from travelling easily across national frontiers. Yet the need for the freest and widest exchange of scientific films is urgent, if only on the ground of their potential value in raising levels of productivity in a period of almost universal impoverishment. UNESCO The Scientific Film Association has from the beginning recognized this need. The promotion of the international use of the scientific film was put high among its aims. The end of the war and the creation of a Film Department at UNESCO brought the hope that the international importance of the scientific film might be more fully realized. Already by 1946, the Association's contacts with foreign countries were numerous, and in the summer of that year, it set up a special committee to handle its international relations. This committee was also meant to serve as a means of liaison between the Association and any national body the Ministry of Education might set up for co-operation with UNESCO. Preparatory Work The Association's chief activity in this field during the past year has been its collaboration with the French Institut de Cinematographic Scientifique in the preparatory work towards creating an international scientific film organization. The French had for a long time done pioneer work by bringing together each year at their scientific film festivals the work of many countries. At the last of these in October, 1946, the Scientific Film Association delegation enjoyed the privilege of seeing the work of such experts as Comandon, Leclerc and Thevenard of Trance, Van der Horst of Holland, Hans Richter of Switzerland, and fachine and Loukachevitch from the Soviet Union; as well as screening a number of outstanding British productions. More important perhaps than this, the British and the I tench engaged in conversations with colleagues from Czechoslovakia, Poland. Sweden and America, at which William Farr, of UNESCO, attended as a sympathetic observer. Congress in the Autumn It was evident at these meetings that the time had come to establish some sort of international organization to keep scientific film-makers and users throughout the world in permanent liaison with each other. The British and French undertook to organize a congress to inaugurate such a movement. It was to be held in Paris in the autumn of 1947. They agreed also to prepare a draft constitution to lay before this congress. The preparation of this document has naturally involved much labour and thought, and frequent consultations between London and Paris. In it, basic principles and certain urgent needs have, it is hoped, found practical expression. The contribution which science can make to human happiness and the part films can play in this, are given first importance. Among the aims proposed for the new organizations are the removal of barriers to the international exchange not only of scientific films, but also of the skill of film technicians, the experience of film users and the products of research into new optical and photographic techniques. The inaugural Congress will take place in Paris on October 2nd, 3rd and 4th, 1947; it will be followed immediately by an International Scientific Film Festival. At this festival, the screen time allotted to each nation is so arranged as to give an equal share to any nation which may wish to participate. By the time this article appears in print, invitations to the Congress and to the festival will have gone out above the signatures of Jean Painleve, Director of the Institut de Cinematographie Scientifique and Basil Wright, President of our own Association, to appropriate bodies in all countries. Other Activities All this is but one aspect of the Association's work in the international field. Counsel has been given on the selection of British scientific films to be shown at a number of international festivals. Enquiries from abroad have been met out of the collective knowledge of the Association's Standing Committees in Industry. Medicine and Education. Films and film strips on biology, mathematics, astronomy, statistics and physics from the USA, Canada, China, Denmark, the Soviet Union and South Africa have been shown to members. Honour has been done to distinguished foreign visitors; to Pierre de Fonbrunc, the eminent cincmicrographer from the Institut Pasteur (invited to Britain by the British Council from whose Science Department the Association has received valuable co-operation); to Jean Benoit-Levy, head ol' the Film Department of UN; and to Vit Hejny, head of the Czechoslovak School Films Department. At this latter occasion, during the Czech Festival in May, a Czech-British scientific film programme gave us the opportunity of seeing Dr Hejny's own film on educational psychology, and the films on ellipses and perabolas, made by Franz Kysela, who also took part in the discussions in Paris last October. The Daily Work These meetings have underlined, in a pleasant fashion, the identity of interest between the scientists, teachers and cinematographers of different nations. But equally important, the Association feels, is the more humdrum day-today work of collecting data essential to its international purposes. At the request of UNESCO, details have been provided of the system of appraising and cataloguing films evolved here in Britain by the Association, and of the Association's Medical Committee"s work on the use of microfilm for disseminating library information on films. On the suggestion of the Director of UNESCO'S Department of Mass Media, John Grierson (who takes a shrewd and lively interest in this as in so many other matters), the British Council made a verbatim record of the proceedings at the Association's March Conference on Films in Industry, so that its findings might be circulated to other countries. Throughout the year, the Association's international librarian, Denys Parsons, has continued to collect data about the scientific films abroad. A summary of the results of his labours is to be published in the near future. This is the document, relating to the work of thirty-three countries, to the interim version of which Michael Michaelis referred in this column in the June-July number of dm . At Home Here in Britain, particularly in the growing ranks of the Scientific Film Society movement, there is a desire to see more frequently examples of film-making abroad. The requests received b> the Association from other countries reveal an equal desire that British scientific films should be . more readih available to them. The Paris Congress w ill seek to prov ide the blueprint for an organization through which these and other exchanges may be increased. In the meantime, the Association has set up a Working Party to realize a more limited aim. It w ill collect and list the titles of scientific films available through the diplomatic representatives in London of all foreign countries. In addition, it will seek to discover from the ow ners or sponsors of all films in the Association's ( at Films of General Scientific Interest how best users abroad mav have access to them. The co-operation Ot" readers of dnl, possessing information value in this work, would be welcomed. o:' ;